Happening at Site AWith Alicia Chester

On July 14, 2013, Alicia Chester and I held an experimental happening at Site A in the Red Gate Woods just south of Chicago. Site A is the burial ground of the first nuclear reactor, CP-1 (Chicago Pile 1). The site where its radioactive waste was buried is nearby in Plot M, which is simply marked by a white stone cube. We deployed a 14’ x 14’ inflatable room at Site A in the form of the cubed memorial marker at Plot M and held a picnic inside with invited guests, the centerpiece of which was a layer cake representing CP-1. The concept was to collapse symbolic spaces by bringing a ghostly version of the memorial shape of Plot M’s stone marker to the burial ground of Site A. Through inviting friends to a communal event and sharing a cake in the form of CP-1, the event took on the flavor of a Day of the Dead picnic commemorating the life and death of the first nuclear chain reactor and all the complications that entail from this local Chicago history.